


Cool

by Villinye (AslansCompass)



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 15:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 5,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1189542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AslansCompass/pseuds/Villinye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one-shots for Eleven.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cool

**Author's Note:**

> The sentence "It's not his coat anymore" inspired this drabble.
> 
> * * *

 

  
It's not his coat anymore. Even though he remembers how good the brown trench coat used to look on him, it doesn't fit anymore. Bowties and suspenders are more his style–oh, and "A fez!" He announces to the unoccupied wardrobe room. "There must be a fez in here somewhere."

He wanders further back into the room, passing a leather jacket and a patchwork rainbow monstrosity before pausing by a thirty-one foot striped scarf. "Scarf…hmm." He held one end over his shoulder. "Scarves are cool?" Catching sight of his reflection in the mirror, he shakes his head. "No. Well… maybe."

 

 


	2. Original State

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

  
"Doctor, does the TARDIS have a laundromat?"  
  
"Amy, the TARDIS has a swimming pool, library, greenhouse, sickbay, study, fifteen bathrooms, as well as a secondary control room and kitchen. It's so big even I have trouble keeping track of the rooms inside."  
  
"Yes, but does it have a laundromat?" Amy rolled her eyes. "Laundry…that thing you do with filthy clothes. Where is it?"  
  
"Past the library, fourth door on the–"The Doctor stared at his hands for a moment. "Left. Left is good. I like the left. I had a friend once who saved the world by turning left."  
  
Amy left the Doctor to mumble on about directions and beetles and coffee as she dragged the bag behind her. Somehow, she was able to find her way through the maze of doors to a room with two glass doors, each the size of a fridge, on the interior wall. Dials below the door were labeled in strange circular hieroglyphs. "The one on the left is the washer–I think," she decided.  
  
She threw some items inside, shut the door, and pressed a green button. A moment later, it pinged. "That was quick," she exclaimed, reaching for the door.  
  
"Baaa…." A pink nose prodded her hand. Amy jumped back as a shabby ewe wobbled forward. It stepped through the door, approaching her.  
  
"DOCTOR!" Amy screamed. "There's a sheep in your washing machine!"  
  
Holding his sonic screwdriver before him, the Doctor ran into the room. "Amy, what–" He looked down on the sheep. "Amy, what happened? I thought you were looking for a washing machine."  
  
"I was." Amy crossed her arms.  
  
"This is the mechanical regression machine. It restores deficient equipment by returning the parts to the original states. So it must have taken your clothing and restored it to the earliest consistent state. Must have had something wool in there-" he glanced inside the box. "As well as synthetics and cotton."  
  
"Doctor," Amy stared at him. "Great, now we have a sheep in the TARDIS. "  
  
The Doctor bent over and began scratching the sheep on the head. "Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb, little lamb."  
  
Amy shook her head and walked out to find a replacement outfit from the wardrobe room. The Doctor's song echoed behind her. "Its fleece was white as snow…."

 

 


	3. What it's all about

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

 

 "Doctor, what were you doing out there? The hokey-pokey?" Amy asked him.

The Doctor straightened his hat. "What's wrong with the hokey-pokey?" He spun across the glass floor of the TARDIS. "You put your right hand in, you put your right hand out…Did I ever mention that I lost one of my hands once? It's okay, I grew a new one."

Amy blinked at him. "What are you? A starfish or something?"

"And you turn yourself around... that's what it's all about!" He took Amy's hand. "Come on, dance with me! That's what it's all about."

"That's it? All of time and space, and it's about…the hokey-pokey?" Rory repeated.

"Why not?" The Doctor asked rhetorically. "That's what it's all about! Yeah!"

 

 


	4. Childish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

 

He's been obsessed with saving people since the Time War, even before then. But these hearts have a particular weakness for children. Amy pinned it long before he know the truth: "Never interfere in the affairs of peoples or planets–unless there's children crying."

One of his older faces made a point of being childish. The two of them might have some interesting times if their timelines ever crossed. But the odds of that happening were so small. It would be a childish thing to hope for.

Children. Somehow it all came back to the children. Small, helpless against the monsters hunting them down, innocent, yet with flashes of adult insight that were all the more terrifying for the high-pitched voice the words were spoken in. The most precious things in the whole universe.

Oh, not everyone agreed. Some would say power, money, security, romance–but they were wrong. It was the children who were most important. Because they were the ones young enough to make a difference.

Children. He looks in the mirror and smiles.

If he was little shorter, he'd fit right in.


	5. Can't figure it out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

 

* * *

  
There are some things the Eleventh Doctor just can't figure out. Number One is why River keeps shooting hats off his head. Second is why Rory and Amy don't like their bunkbed. Third, how he feels about Rose Tyler.

Number one is important because he wants to keep his head (and more importantly, the next fez he finds) intact. Number two is important because he doesn't know why he has to keep reassembling the bed. Number three is important because…well, to be honest, he isn't always sure if it's important or not.

She still has him (him, not him), after all. They can go off and make babies to their hearts' content. He briefly wonders if that disgusts him-not-him as much at it disgusted him when he was the ninth one. Or when Amy backed him up against the TARDIS. Ewww. Just…ew.

What was he thinking about again? Right, Rose. He just doesn't think about her that much. Parallel universes and all that, not like he could pop in for a quick visit. Besides, he has other things to worry about. Like those Daleks that got away a few months ago, and where to find a fez, and what it is Amy wants to tell him.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly can't see 11 and Rose together at all: she had enough trouble when 9 regenerated into 10, and 11's such an overgrown child.


	6. Dimmer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

Someone once said that you can tell a person's heart–for good or evil–by the things that make him angry. At first, Amy might have judged him innocent based on that evidence. He was angry, yes, but at the torture of the innocent, the threatening of friends.

Now, she's having second thoughts. While he might be angry for the right reasons, his responses are disproportional, wiping out a whole race for the sins of an individual. It reminds her of a dimmer switch, slowly changing from light to dark.

 

 


	7. Constellation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

 

 Trapped. Trapped in a timeless, unbreakable prison….just like the rest of his race. At least his prison is quiet. Quiet enough to think. Outside, the stars go out, constellation by constellation. He thinks of the ancient Greeks, who created the stories we still remember today, and the Romans, whose names we still associate with them. Orion. Ursa Major. Cassandra. Didn't he have a companion whose legend was reflected in the stars? What was her name again–Zoe, perhaps? Even as the stars vanish, he can see them spread out like a map.

The groups are artificial, after all. A red giant five hundred light-years away might be a dot in the same drawing as a white dwarf one-tenth the distance, forming a seamless image, though they were never aware of it, never meeting save in imagination.

Now everything outside is darkness. He thinks of Emres, a friend from Fi'cara, where the constellations are made of the dark places, not the stars. "Between places," Emres had called them. "Where your mind can travel forever and ever." But without stars to divide the darkness, even those constellations vanish.


	8. Picture on the Mantle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

Amy wishes she had a picture of him to sit over her mantle, but the images on her phone are too blurred to print. So she holds it next on her mental shelf, next to the memories of Melody and River, alongside the childhood pictures of Mels with her and Rory. Her mum did get a few pictures during the wedding, but the oddity of the situation overcame the natural photographic tendencies. That's how she wants to remember him, though, eyes gleaming with joy, so satisfied, like a cup that could not be filled with one more drop or it would overflow.

The other memories–the other pictures, the ones that drift in her mind when she tries to relax–sting like a hundred little bees. His face in the Minotaur's maze, with a look in his eyes that said he wasn't seeing Amy Williams. Not at first. At first he was seeing Amelia Pond, the little girl he'd met and abandoned so many years ago. He must carry pictures in his head too, so many pictures of people who hadn't left like the two of them. "Because you're still breathing."

There must have been some who did not, who died on these adventures. Even on her first trip with him, she'd seen terrible things, awful monsters and disasters. But it wasn't just limited to friends or passersby.

He'd died too.

That picture is burned into her mind forever.


	9. Last Night Falls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the mini episode Last Night, but understandable without seeing it.

 

  
He'll take River all the way back to Stormcage after the Singing Towers, but he'll still go through the motions of fixing that vortex manipulator one last time. He'll materialize the TARDIS inside her cell, making up excuses to delay her departure. Before taking off, he'll kiss her one last time–last but not last, they always met in the wrong order–running his fingers through her knotted hair and rejoicing in the warmth of her cheek against his.

Only when she tries to break away will he become awkward again, hands awkwardly waving in the air, nearly tumbling backwards as he tries to leave. River will tease, and the word goodbye will dribble off his tongue, wanting to drag the word forever along with it. But he'll stop himself, without using the word spoilers because that word will hurt for a very long time.

When he shuts the door behind him, he will sink to the floor and bury his face in his hands. He won't cry because he'll wake up his companion–of course he'll have a companion, he couldn't bear to be alone after River's last night with him.

Something, maybe a bad dream, maybe a whisper from the TARDIS, will wake the companion up. He or she will creep down to the control room, see the Doctor's face and ask what's wrong.

He'll try to laugh it off, maybe suggest a trip to the Eye of Orion or Barcelona, but the TARDIS will not let him escape so easily. It will land in the backyard of a sleepy house in Leadsworth, the home of Amy and Rory Williams.

He won't step out right away, but he'll do it before the TARDIS kicks him out. He'll straighten his bowtie and pause before knocking on the door. His mind will flicker to boys who delivered black-edged telegrams in the second before Rory opens the door.

Amy will scream

Amy will cry.

Amy will hit him.

Amy will refuse to believe it, that much he knows without any foresight.

Rory will hold back his own reaction, choking on tears as he tells the Doctor thank you for the news, and couldn't he share a few more detail? Their waiting will be over, at least until she breaks out of Stormcage for the fifth time instead of the final.

He'll offer them one last trip, but he knows they will refuse, because the only trip Amy would want would be one to stop River from ever going to the Library.

 _Time_ can't _be rewritten._

Not these times.

Not one line.


	10. Not For Ever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the SJA episode "Death of the Doctor"

 

  
He tries to smile as Jo Grant leaves the TARDIS. For all the jokes about him turning into a baby and getting him into trouble with the Time Lords, her speech hurt more than he'd revealed.

_"He wouldn't just leave…"_

But he had. So many times, he'd left because it was too hard to say goodbye. He stole the TARDIS and left Gallifrey without saying a word. He'd left Susan on the other side of the TARDIS door–a decision he curses when he's alone with only his thoughts. He'd left Sarah Jane in Aberdeen, stranding her for years. He'd left Donna–wealthy and happy, true–but without the memories that made who she was. A payment for the time he'd stolen.

_"...not forever"_

He looks so young that it's easy for his companions to forget how old he really is. The loans he's incurred over the centuries keep coming due, with compounded interest. Because no matter how much others would deny it, he is the inheritor of his own debts.


	11. Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

 

He sneaks into River's cell at night and takes her across the universe. Neither of them need as much sleep as humans, and he doesn't want to fiddle with the TARDIS controls all night; much as he loves his Sexy, it's only something he can do for so long. So he limits River's sentence to her days at Storm Cage and her nights are his. But there's another reason for his visits.

When the TARDIS is quiet, he remembers everyone he's lost. He's left alone in the shadows of his thoughts; thoughts that seize him like ravenous wolves in winter.

 

 


	12. Eschatology Daily

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by The Incredibles and "I Saved the World Today" by Eurythmics

 

 _No matter how many times you save the world, it always manages to get back in jeopardy again. Sometimes I just want it to stay saved! You know, for a little bit? I feel like the maid; I just cleaned up this mess! Can we keep it clean for... for ten minutes!_  
-The Incredibles  
\-----------------  
How many times has he saved the world? Rita accused him of having a "god complex," but that's only what humans call it, they can't know what it really feels like, in the end. They haven't had to face the destruction of two of the greatest races in civilization, one his own people, one their ancient foe. Both threatening to destroy the universe, but the greater threat was his own people. He was the only Time Lord left now, and he wanted the title to be a comfort, not a threat.

Amy saw it as a positive attribute. Very old and very kind and the very, very last, she said. He couldn't bear to stand there and watch children cry. He hadn't told her the real reason, but little Alfie knew: "Save the tears for later, boy-o. Oh, that was crabby. That was old. But I am old, Stormy. I am so old. So near the end."

Children are supposed to believe that someone would come along and make everything better in the end. That's what he was supposed to do, the Doctor, make everyone better. But it didn't stop. The universe never stayed saved, not from aliens nor internal threats. There was nothing he could do.

He saved the world by dying on that beach.

If only he could really have stayed dead. The bad things had gone away, yes, but so had so many good things. If only he could hold onto the good times, never let them go. But he had never been good at that. Never ever. He was still breathing, but so many of his friends were not. He had to hide it, had to make them think he was fine. He saved the world today; everybody's happy now, the bad things gone away.

He's one of the bad things that has to go away. He's lost track of how many times he saved the world. In one of his more fantastic dreams, he stated that he saved every planet in the galaxy twenty-seven times. And then he turned into a woman. And the latter was the less surprising part of the dream. Twenty-seven times was far too low, even if one only took the Earth into account.

Even if he discarded all pre-Time War invasions, he'd have to start with the Autons and end with this River's time collapse, with , and several Dalek invasion in between, not to mention that mess with the Time Lock breaking open. Saving the world was his occupation, but he wouldn't mind if it would just stay saved for once. But that was never going to happen, was it? It just kept getting mucked up. He couldn't die as long as the world needed saving. And the world always needs saving.

 

\------------  
 _Hey hey, I saved the world today, and everybody's happy now, the bad thing's gone away_

-"I Saved the World Today" by Eurythmics


	13. Four and Only Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> partially inspired by Winjara's The Fifth Envelope on fanfiction net. Reflection on the four envelopes in "Impossible Astronaut."
> 
> * * *

 

_I had to die. I didn't have to die alone._

That's what he told Winston Churchill, but the real answer wasso much more complicated than that. He had to invite them all, Canton, River, Amy, Rory, because they'd already been there. He hates stable time loops–they give him headaches from trying to find a way out.

_Amy and Rory. The Last Centurion and the Girl Who Waited. However dark it got, I'd turn around and there they'd be. If it's time to go, remember what you're leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me._

Yes, his friends had always been the best part of him. But he's lost so many over the years. Starting with Susan and ending with Donna, both locked out of the memories they had once rejoiced in. Where was Ace now? Whatever had happened to Jamie after the Time Lords wiped his memories? Or Nyssa on the leper colony? And then there were the ones who died. Sara (not Sarah Jane, the first Sara), Adric… and River, her death a horribly fixed point in time.

Yes, he'd want Amy and Rory there. His best friends, his last friends, the ones who understood something of that horrible, empty loneliness of eternity. They'd have to be there together, so that they wouldn't have to leave alone. For all the mess he made of things, at least they had each other.

Canton Everett Delaware III. It started with him, didn't it? The search for Amy's daughter, the impossible astronaut rising from the lake. He was there at the beginning of it all; fitting he should be there at the end.

River. Yes, she had to be there. Twice over, she would be there. He had to impress upon her that this was inevitable. There was no way out; this fixed point could not be rewritten. But there was something else he had to convince her of. _You are forgiven. Always and completely forgiven._ Because he knows the guilt she would suffer, the nights of sleeplessness, the endless replays of his death. Since the war, that's all he's known. He can't leave River with that guilt.

They have to come. All of them, only them. It's a fixed point, his death by the shores of Lake Silencio. Who else would he invite, anyway? Rose is in the parallel universe with his clone; Donna can't remember; Martha and Mickey are happy; and Jack…he hasn't seen Jack in a long time.

Sarah Jane, maybe. He's seen her, he knows where she lives–even been to visit her twice. Since his first visit at Deffrey Vale, she's changed, found a family of her own. Her son Luke–brilliant boy–and his friends, Rani and Clyde. If he could invite anyone else, it would be her. She's seen so many of his faces–the dandy, the scarf, the lonely, the bowtie. She was there for his third regeneration ( _a tear, Sarah Jane? While there's life, there's…_ ) and silently said goodbye before his tenth. She'd know what was going on, she'd understand what the flame and the light meant–

until it died. Until his regeneration failed. She'd have to watch Amy checked for a pulse, Canton poured gasoline over the body, Rory push the boat into the center of the lake and light the flames. She'd have to go home, knowing she'd never see him again.

No. Even if he could, he wouldn't do that to her. She'd said goodbye too many times already. Better she doesn't know.

 _She'd want to know._ A voice in his head whispers, _she wouldn't want to you to be alone._

But she couldn't do anything about it. The helplessness–the tears–the dull stillness afterwards–he couldn't do that to his best friend. Not ever.


	14. S'mores

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

 

  
The front door swung open. “Amy, Rory, hey, just thought I’d pop in for a campfire. You can have one of those here, can’t you? Otherwise we could go and find somewhere better. I was trying to roast some marshmallows during the Great Fire and, well, I got a little scorched.”

Amy glanced at the sticky white patches on his tweed jacket and the flakes of ash in his hair. “Doctor, should I really trust you with fire?”

“I’ll have you know I carried the Olympic torch once!”

“And you didn’t burn down half the city?”

“I can be very graceful when I want to be.”

“Well, you can’t have been trying very hard then.”

“Amy Pond, all I want is a graham cracker, a marshmallow, and some chocolate, is that so hard?”

“Apparently, or you wouldn't be standing on my doorstep. Did you check the TARDIS kitchen?”

“Yes.” He stuck out his tongue. “She wouldn't give me a campfire or crackers. Worried I’d get crumbs in the Time Rotor or goo over the zig-zag plotter.”

“I’m not even sure we have graham crackers–“

He pushed past her and began rummaging through the cupboards. “Marmite, toast, sugar–where’s the jammy dodgers? You had some last time I was here.”

“You ate them all, remember?” Amy sighed. “Look, if you want s’mores, we’ll have to run down to the shop. Rory will be home any minute, he has the car.”

“A car? I have a wonderful time machine and you want the car?”

\-----------------  
The Doctor jumped into the front seat next to Rory. “So, right, let’s go.”

“Doctor, somebody will have to sit in the back of the care. Seatbelt laws and all that. “

“Right, good idea, move to the back, Rory.”

“Um, Doctor, it’s my car,” he pointed out.

“Right, Amy, move back.”

“And he’s my husband. “

“Ah, right…that…” The Doctor scrambled into the back seat. “That would be a good thing, let’s get going.”

\-----------------------

They returned to the house with two bags of marshmallows, three packages of graham crackers, at least one bar of every chocolate in the shop, and five sticks of Starbursts . “Why the starbursts, again?” Amy shook her head.

“If you hold them over a fire until the corner drips twice, they get really crunchy outside and really gooey inside.”

“And how do you know this?”

“I was trying to repair something.” The Doctor headed for the back door.

“With sweets?”

“It was that or postcards from Blackpool!” He let the door bang shut behind him. “Where’s the fire pit? I thought you had a fire pit.”

“You can roast them in the microwave.” Rory called.

“The microwave? Are you insane? That’s just sad. You don’t get to see them puff up and turn all golden brown.”

“I used to do it when I was little. It’s actually kind of fun.” Amy opened the door. “Just try it once, okay?”

\--------------------

Good news: they had kept the Doctor from lighting a fire.

Better news: he loved watching them poof up in the microwave.

In fact, he loved it so much he ate an entire bag of marshmallows in 63 minutes.

Bad news: _Doctor + sugar._

“It’s wonderful, isn’t it? Human beings, so creative. You make all these healthy snacks and then you turn them into desert. Like caramel apples. Dip them in sprinkles and nuts and edible glitter… You know what I think? We should go to the 43rd century. They found a way to make Brussels sprouts taste like blueberry cheesecase. It’s like cheese balls, but with cheesecake-flavored sprouts. Come on, hey?” He staggered to one side. “On the other hand, I am kind of full right now… wait a while, maybe?”

He slumped onto the floor.

“How is he still alive?”

“Maybe they can’t get diabetes,” Rory suggested. “Nobody should be able to eat that much sugar. Do you think he normally eats like that?”

“It would explain a lot.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, you can roast starbursts. I do it regularly.


	15. The Hanging Tree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What I imagined he saw was ten men hanging from ten nooses, but one noose free for an 11th man. So thats what I thought he saw.--Matt Smith, on the Doctor's room in "The God Complex"

 

  
They couldn’t have been dead long. Ten bodies dangle from ten nooses, like candied apples at a Halloween party. All perfectly clothed, from the fresh stalk of celery on the fifth’s cricket uniform to the trench coat sweeping the stars on his previous self’s Converse. The coloured scarf of his fourth self, twisted and stretched, nearly hide the rope.

Charges for each flash through his mind. _For reckless interference. For cowardice. For surviving. For hubris._

Just behind the last body’s left arm, an eleventh rope swings into view. Empty, awaiting a pendulum.

“Of course. Who else?”[  
](http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=44966)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title comes from the song in Mockingjay and I do have specific Doctors in mind for each charge.


	16. A Sad Man in a Box

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

 

  
He’d get drunk, if he was capable of it. Even if he liked the taste of wine, his metabolism is far too efficient at processing depressants and stimulants. Actually, neither side effect is desirable. He doesn't want to feel better, but the very idea of “spilling his guts,” to a random stranger disgusts him, no matter how inaccurate the figure of speech.

What he really needs is some way to silence their ghosts. Her last words replay in his mind, tinged by every time she used that ridiculous nickname. _“Raggedy Man, goodbye!”_

He sits in the console room, eyes closed, hearing the emptiness even though he can’t see it. “Change it,” he whispers. It’s too easy to imagine Amy following her around the console, Rory asking questions with obvious answers. “Change it!”

The glass ripples, a lake stirred by the breeze and turned to ice. The console room’s changed. Smaller– _he doesn't need the space_ –and darker, black and aqua. “That wasn't what I meant,” he mutters.

The rotor remains still. Why couldn't Amy have listened to him for once? He could have figured something out…

No, not Rule 1.

He’s so old, so vain. So _selfish._ He couldn't bear to lose his Amelia to anyone, not even her husband. That’s why he invited Rory along, why he kept coming back to pokey little Leadsworth.

He loses people. It’s all he’s ever done. The voice interface in Berlin. _Guilt. Also guilt. More guilt._ At least it stopped there. He didn't want to see the others. Lucie. Peri. Adric. _Just you and me._ Again. He doesn't need to say it out loud. She understands.

 

 


	17. Unspoken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “A secret's worth depends on the people from whom it must be kept.”  
> ― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

He's never told Clara about River. Oh, he's mentioned Professor Song once or twice, alluding to past adventures, but he hasn't so much as whispered a word about River Song, _his wife._

Secrets protect us. Secrets keep us safe.

She'd always kept secrets from him--it was her damn catchphrase, after all: spoilers. Now it was his turn.

No, it wasn't revenge. He wants to tell Clara about his brilliant wife, about how she trusts him so much she'll jump off buildings knowing he'll catch her, how she leaves him messages through all time and space, how he trusts her with everything, even his name.

But he hasn't seen River in a very long time, not since Manhattan. He wonders if their timeline has been rewritten, if she somehow went to the Library and Darillium never happened. Or maybe she doesn't love him after all, maybe she never loved him, and it was all just a game so she could be close to her parents.

He hates himself for thinking that way, for doubting her, but it's no more than he deserves. Even so, he can't bring himself to speak of River to anyone, not even Clara. River is all he has now, the only water in his forest, and he doesn't want to spill a drop.

 

 


	18. Silver Lining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers for Angels Take Manhattan

 

_He doesn't have to tell them._

He hates the thought, hates himself even as the words flash through his mind. But later–after River’s left, after he’s changed the mocking desktop theme–he clings to them as shreds of consolation for his arid desert.

He’s spent years trying to plan how to tell them, but even in his imagination, it always ended with Amy’s hazel eyes glaring at him, sharp as Rory’s sword. He couldn't–he can’t–yes, he’d love to go back and save her, but he can’t, it’s a fixed point, it’s how _they meet_ , and if you want to blame someone, Amy, blame your daughter, she told me what comes right before it for me, and I had to let her go, I couldn't say anything, do you know how that feels, letting someone walk to her death to save you, but a you who is absolutely, completely, clueless?

His hearts pounded faster at that bit, every time. He’d settled on telling River to visit her parents before the Library–well, asking, he’d learned at Berlin that he couldn't make River do anything, and Utah had hammered that lesson home.

Now he won’t have to tell them, _can’t_ tell them. Darillium will come and go, and he’ll be the only one to know why their song brings tears to his eyes.

 

 


	19. Illusionist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

 

He can’t look her in the eyes, because she isn't really there. She’s only an illusion, a magician’s trick, a rabbit pulled from a hat in the second act, only to disappear for the grand finale. And he doesn't like magicians.

Slice a woman in two, pull a penny from somebody’s ear, predict what card will be drawn from the deck. As a Doctor, he’s had to sever memories from minds and rewrite the future with nothing more than a sonic and a slammed door. He wishes they’d just leave him alone. No more tricks. No more magic wands.

  
All the best tricks require an assistant anyway. A partner, someone to misdirect the audience’s attention while the master works.

"Doctor, what is your name?"

Never look where the coin is. Look where it was, so they can’t tell where it will be. “Stop this. Leave them alone.”

Banter distracts, yes, but it also provides cues. _River, I know you’re listening._

Strax boasts, Clara screams, Vastra shoves Jenny behind her.

”Please, stop it.” He doesn’t beg. Not the Daleks, not the Cybermen, not the Weeping Angels– (Amy, he was begging Amy that time.) The tomb is sealed with his name, a word lost in the grinding lock of Gallifrey. There’s only one time he could tell anyone.

Please.

(The coin appears, the card is revealed–-the assistant had it all along.)

The door opens.

"Why did you open the door, sir? I had them on the run."

"I didn’t do it." Always deny an explanation. “I didn't say my name.”

 


	20. Man on Praed Stree

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A collection of one-shots for Eleven.

 

Why had he even bothered? A drunkard without a drill, war on the moon….none of it matters.

Jenny valiantly makes one last attempt. “There’s a man on Praed Street with an invisible wife.”

He stiffens, all annoyance buried by a spade of pain. She doesn’t know– _can’t know_ – what he sees in the TARDIS corridors. It’s not a memory. It’s not time spillage. But inside an 11-dimensional being, echoes do funny things. He can here her voice laughing, teasing, just…talking.

Sometimes, he can hear his past self answer.

"Maybe he just…doesn’t have a wife."

Till death do us part? Human rubbish! That was no part of his vows. They’re both Time Lords. Death is a minor inconvenience, a sprained ankle in the race of life. You limp briefly, heal, and move on.

He does have a wife. She’s just …inconvenienced for a time. Incapacitated, that’s the word. She’ll be up and running any day now.

Any day….that’s what the Doctor said.


End file.
